In today’s software world, clients understand that designs must emerge in the course of development rather than be the outcome of specifics stated at the outset of a project. There are several examples of how sketching out an architecture upfront has affected the outcome of projects. In the best case, it can cause a lot of wasted effort. In the worst case, it can spoil customer relationships when the plan is scrapped, so the company can focus on new priorities.
The Importance of Flexibility in Software Development
It is important to focus on delivering solutions that are not only lightweight, but also flexible enough to be able to adapt to the changing circumstances of a project. This will ensure that even if the design and features do not exactly meet the key needs of a project, you can always tweak them to deliver the end result. The biggest advantage of having a flexible approach in software development is that you won’t have to scrap the entire thing and start from scratch again. It can save you, your team, and your employers loads of time, effort and of course, money.
Industry experts are of the opinion that planning far too much in advance may prove to be extremely dangerous for a project. It virtually guarantees important decisions even before anyone can realize the impact of those decisions on the long-term prospects of the project. In addition, as the decision-making process is fairly centralized, the intellect of everyone on a software development team will not be put to optimum use. Such moves can lead to poor decision-making and can affect the overall quality of the project.
Lean Thinking: The Newest Approach to Creating Great Software
Lean thinking is the buzz word in software development and architecture nowadays. A good software architect is one who will seamlessly merge all the elements of a work system together, but will take adequate care to ensure that implementation details of the project are not shared with all too far in advance.
Lean thinking shows you how to more than merely focus on individual processes. It tells you to look at the entire value stream of which you are a part. You must have a comprehensive overview of everything that happens from start to finish in the development of a solution that can provide value to the end user.
Taking Up One Thing at a Time Is the Way to Succeed
Experts recommend that software architects pick a single value stream and use it to create the framework for a series of long-term technical planning efforts. This can start with the components and subsystems closest to value-creating steps, which can then inch forward to cover other areas of the system.
In addition to setting context for your architectural endeavors, this will also provide a road map, using which you can justify various elements of your system’s architecture. This will allow you to leverage the power of your comprehensive design, the efficiency of which has been established by various techniques in other areas of software development.
The simple designs generated by this approach toward software development are very easy to change. As is common knowledge in the software development world, responding to change is the name of the game.
